The Belt

"The bodies of child-abuse victims are tense and defensive until they find a way to relax and feel safe. In order to change, people need to become aware of their sensations and the way that their bodies interact with the world around them. Physical self-awareness is the first step in releasing the tyranny of the past."

 ~Bessel van den Kolk~

I snuck out of my bedroom window. I was going to meet my boyfriend and we were going to make-out. Just make-out. We did that a lot. He was really very sweet. I waited for him. He didn't show up. That was weird. He always showed up. I was walking along the front of my parents house back to my room wondering if I should call him, it was after midnight. I had been waiting for an hour. I got to my bedroom window. I had left the screen off and was about to slide the window open when the phone started ringing. I jumped and stared inside my bedroom. Oh God, it was going to wake my parents up. 

It did. My bedroom door opened and the light turned on. I watched my mom stomp to the bed, pull the covers back and then stomp back out. I broke into a sprint.

I ran as hard as I could down the street until I got to the stop sign. Then the voice in my head said, "You are going to have to deal with the sooner or later, might as well go back now before she calls the police.”

I walked back to the house. Slowly. I was sweating from running but my body felt ice cold. My heart thumped in my ears. I had no thoughts. I got to my bedroom window. I slid it open, slowly and quietly. I hauled myself up and had my knees on the window sill. I was looking at the ground. I heard the stomping footsteps. I felt her grab me by my hair. And she yanked me in, hard. I hit the floor. The metal window sill scraped my knees and shins. I heard her stomp out. I was just getting to my feet when I felt her grab my left arm and pull me to my feet. That's when I felt the strap hit my backside. I'm certain she was aiming for my ass, but she was too angry to slow down and I was already flailing and trying to get away from her. She got in four or five or a hundred hits to my backside, butt and upper legs. Then she stomped back out.

She came back in and that is when the screaming and yelling started. I have absolutely no idea what she said. At all. I just know that the last thing that she said was that she was going to nail the screen on my bedroom window and put a lock on it from the outside and that I was never leaving the house again. Great! House arrest again. I had spent most of my life grounded. "School and Bedroom, that's it!" For months at a time. That's why I snuck out so often. I was only fifteen years old. "School and Bedroom" was torture. It felt like torture. Especially in that house. I was bullied at school and I was bullied at home. There was no safe space. What I wanted her to do was get out the belt and beat me again because that was better than solitary confinement.

As she left my room I shouted at her, "Don't bother with the lock on my window, when I want to leave I'll use the front door!!!" I turned off the light. I shut my bedroom door. And I laid down in bed. And I tried to calm my breathing.

I was full of anxiety. My body felt hot and flushed. My mind was racing! I couldn't keep up with my thoughts or finish one from beginning to end. I can't be grounded again. Was this going to be a congruent sentence, since I was already grounded, or was this going to be consecutive? I still had at least 6 weeks to go on my last grounding! Damn it!!

I waited. And waited. I have no idea how long I laid there, probably an hour. Every minute felt like a century. I stood up and got dressed in the dark. I opened my bedroom door slowly. The house was dark and silent. Her bedroom door was open. I could smell the fresh cigarettes. I tip-toed down the hallway. I tip-toed to the front door. I unlocked and opened it as quietly as I could. I stepped on the front porch. And then, with all of the strength in my body, I slammed the front door closed as hard as I could. I could see, feel and hear the entire house rattle. And, again, I sprinted... and I am fast!

I hit the stop sign at the end of the street, turned right and kept going up the hill. It was two blocks to my friends house. I went up to her bedroom window and started tapping hard. She slid it open a bit. "What are you doing here!!" and she let me climb in. I told her about my night and asked her if she could call me a cab and loan me $20, I was going to my boyfriend's house. And of course she said yes.

The cab was there in about 15 minutes, at most. I went outside and climbed inside. I told the driver the address of where I was going. Headlights came up behind us fast and filled the car with light. I turned around and saw my dad getting out of the car. "Please drive! Drive! That's my dad! Don't let him catch me!" I have no idea why that adult male cab driver did what I told him to do, but he hit the gas. Hard!

We were racing up the street to the main intersection and in a flash my dad was behind us. Too Close! Flashing his headlights and honking! Trying to pull up beside us. That cab driver must have either been scared or bored because the next thing that I knew I was sliding back and forth across the back seat while he raced my dad across town. It was like some dumb action movie. We were almost to my boyfriend's house when I told the cab driver I wanted him to take me to my aunt's house instead. I was afraid that my dad would beat the shit out of my boyfriend. 

The cab driver kept going past the house. I didn't know my aunt's address but it was a five mile straight stretch of road with only one stoplight to get there. I have no idea how fast the cab was going but we sailed through that stoplight without even breaking and my dad was only inches away from the bumper.

We pulled into my aunt's driveway and I screamed, literally shrieked, THANK YOU! and dove out of the car and bolted to the front door and started pounding on it, and screaming, and ringing the doorbell over and over again. And, had my dad not stopped to try and rip the cab driver out of the car he would have caught me.

As it was, my uncle opened the door. My uncle always seemed like a pretty big guy to me and he had just opened the front door a crack to look out when I shoved the door open so hard it almost knocked him down. My aunt was standing behind him and I ran behind her. I held her shoulders and stared past her at my uncle's back as he looked out the front door. I could hear my dad, it did not sound like words it sounded like some kind of wild primeval growling. I could see my uncle square himself in the doorway, "Not tonight. Go Home. Not tonight." The growling continued and so did the "Not tonight. Go Home. Not tonight." That was all my uncle said. Finally the growling stopped and the front door closed.

My uncle turned to me, he gave me a half smile and put his hand on the top of my head, kind of patting me like a dog. "You scared me, are you ok?" I could only nod. He turned to my aunt, "Call her mom and let her know that she is ok and that she is staying here tonight, we'll talk about this in the morning." He went and got me blanket and a pillow while my aunt called my mom. How strange and comforting. No questions, no yelling, no blame, no shame. Just acceptance and understanding and love.

I stayed there for only two weeks.